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Baffle   /bˈæfəl/   Listen
noun
Baffle  n.  
1.
A defeat by artifice, shifts, and turns; discomfiture. (R.) "A baffle to philosophy."
2.
(Engin.)
(a)
A deflector, as a plate or wall, so arranged across a furnace or boiler flue as to mingle the hot gases and deflect them against the substance to be heated.
(b)
A grating or plate across a channel or pipe conveying water, gas, or the like, by which the flow is rendered more uniform in different parts of the cross section of the stream; used in measuring the rate of flow, as by means of a weir.
3.
(Coal Mining) A lever for operating the throttle valve of a winding engine. (Local, U. S.)


verb
Baffle  v. t.  (past & past part. baffled; pres. part. baffling)  
1.
To cause to undergo a disgraceful punishment, as a recreant knight. (Obs.) "He by the heels him hung upon a tree, And baffled so, that all which passed by The picture of his punishment might see."
2.
To check by shifts and turns; to elude; to foil. "The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim."
3.
To check by perplexing; to disconcert, frustrate, or defeat; to thwart. "A baffled purpose." "A suitable scripture ready to repel and baffle them all." "Calculations so difficult as to have baffled, until within a... recent period, the most enlightened nations." "The mere intricacy of a question should not baffle us."
Baffling wind (Naut.), one that frequently shifts from one point to another.
Synonyms: To balk; thwart; foil; frustrate; defeat.


Baffle  v. i.  
1.
To practice deceit. (Obs.)
2.
To struggle against in vain; as, a ship baffles with the winds. (R.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Baffle" Quotes from Famous Books



... travel, plays, musical comedies and one cook-book. The background of this picture shows the densely matted bush of the Filbert Islands in their interior portion, a jungle growth which might well baffle any but the most skillful threader of the trackless wilds. The gun carried by Dr. Traprock is a museum-piece, having been presented to the author's great-grandfather by Israel Putnam immediately after the Battle of ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... chemists had most difficulty in sorting out and identifying were the heavy metals found in the "rare earths." There were about twenty of them so mixed up together and so much alike as to baffle all ordinary means of separating them. For a hundred years chemists worked over them and quarreled over them before they discovered that they had a commercial value. It was a problem as remote from practicality ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral. Under a vigorous national government, the natural strength and resources of the country, directed to a common interest, would baffle all the combinations of European jealousy to restrain our growth. This situation would even take away the motive to such combinations, by inducing an impracticability of success. An active commerce, an extensive navigation, and a flourishing marine would then be the offspring of moral ...
— The Federalist Papers
... quantity of ammunition for the guns and rifles which she was carrying out, and Captain Spence was cherishing an inward hope that a fine easterly breeze which had been blowing for some days would carry him well down channel and then chop round from the southward in good time to baffle his old friend during the passage of the Flying Cloud through the Downs. A somewhat curious and amusing characteristic of the friendly rivalry between the skippers was that, whilst each implicitly believed in his own ship, he affected a faith in the superior qualities of the ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... building. There was a dead silence. Was it going to rain? Was it going to pour? Was the storm confined to the metropolis? Would it reach Epsom? A deluge, and the course would be a quagmire, and strength might baffle speed. ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli


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